Decision due March 30 on grant for Mancos health clinic

Decision due March 30 on grant for Mancos health clinic

Mar. 22, 2001

By Tom Vaughan
Mancos Times Editor

If a $500,000 federal grant is approved on March 30, Mancos could have a community health clinic open by May 1, 2001.

It all depends on the grant, said Marguerite Salazar, CEO of Valley-Wide Health Services, Inc., an Alamosa-based nonprofit network of health-care centers, in a telephone interview Monday.

She is optimistic about the success of the proposal to fund a clinic in Mancos; no request for further information has been received, she said, and President George Bush has been publicly declaring his support for community health centers.

The request to designate Montezuma County a medically under-served area, which is a prerequisite for the grant and for VWHS participation in opening the clinic, was approved three weeks before the La Plata County designation.

The case for Montezuma County was clearer and stronger, Salazar said.

Following the designation, the VWHS executive immediately submitted a request to have Montezuma County designated a "health professions shortage area."

New doctors are better able to repay their student loans if they take positions in HPSA-designated locations, giving HPSAs an extra bargaining chip in recruiting.

Asked about the process that will kick in if the grant is approved, Salazar listed the following steps:

Secure a site for the clinic. Portions of the former Mancos clinic have been offered and considered for the new clinic.
Identify and obtain the equipment needed.
Hire staff.
Complete necessary licensing, insurance arrangements, and other administrative details.
Open for business.

The money will be available to VWHS on April 1 if the grant is awarded, and Salazar promised to be in Mancos on April 5 or 6 to meet with local clinic supporters and get the process rolling.

While the relationship among Valley-Wide’s new sites in Durango — clinics acquired from Mercy Medical Center on March 9 — and the Mancos clinic would need to be worked out on the most practical basis, Salazar said the Mancos clinic would have its own local advisory board and one seat on the VWHS governing board.

She was enthusiastic about the computer connections that have been installed in Durango, linking the clinics there with the VWHS central billing office in Alamosa.

She anticipated the same communications links for both administrative and operational needs would be possible in Mancos.

Local hiring will be done, Salazar promised, and VWHS will get a doctor assigned to the clinic as quickly as possible.

A doctor from Arizona, being recruited by Southwest Memorial Hospital, has indicated a liking for Mancos and would be among those considered for the Mancos clinic.

In addition to offering primary health care in a convenient location for Mancos Valley residents, Salazar said Valley-Wide’s ability to serve indigent, Medicare/Medicaid and under-insured patients will ease a costly burden now borne by private practitioners.

A low-cost health-care clinic has long been a topic of discussion among the Montezuma County Hospital District board members. With some 20 percent of the county’s population living at or below poverty level, Southwest Memorial Hospital has become the last resort for treatment for a sizable number of persons who lack health insurance.